Situational Analysis | July 1, 2022

Welcome to July and National Grilling Month! It's also National Hot Dog Month 🌭  and National Ice Cream Month. 🍦 

Enjoy your long weekend as we celebrate Independence Day. Here's a list of events that might pique your interest and a list of fireworks restrictions. Have fun, don't burn the state down and Utah Policy will be back in your inboxes on Tuesday. 

Be in the Know

• The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Thursday that Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency regulations limiting coal plant emissions overstepped its authority. President Joe Biden called it a “devastating decision that aims to take our country backwards," while leaders in Utah applaud the decision. Jennifer Napier-Pearce, Cox’s senior communications adviser, said the governor is “thrilled” with the decision. “We believe that states are best situated to develop ways to reduce emissions, and we’ve been successful in doing so."

• The Court also ruled 5-4 yesterday that the Biden administration can end the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocol—or “Remain in Mexico” policy—which required asylum seekers arriving at the United States’ southwestern border to wait in Mexico for their claims to be processed. 

• Finally, U.S. consumer spending is cooling, decreasing 0.4 percent month-over-month in May, after increasing by 0.3 percent each of the two months prior. And, global markets wrapped up their worst first half of a year since 1970 yesterday, with the S&P 500 falling 21 percent through Thursday from the beginning of 2022.

Rapid Roundup

• USC and UCLA are leaving the PAC-12, Yellowstone is reopening the entire park this weekend, record-high gas prices aren't projected to stop Americans from traveling for the Independence Day holiday weekend, meanwhile, Delta pilots picket across the country, and, mortgage rates dropped slightly to 5.70%. 

FROM OUR SPONSOR, DESERET NEWS MARATHON

This is the race: Join us for this year's Deseret News Marathon on July 23!

First run in 1970, the Deseret News Marathon is the oldest road race in Utah and the 4th oldest marathon west of the continental divide. The marathon follows the path the Utah pioneers traveled when they first entered the valley. This event is truly a part of Utah’s heritage! Register today!

Utah Headlines

General

• Public invited to see new monument honoring Black pioneers at This is the Place Heritage Park (Deseret News)
• ‘Bar-a-palooza’: Utah’s liquor board hands out eight bar licenses. Population increases and approval by the Utah Legislature made the new licenses available. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• HOA Treasurer confesses to embezzling more than $150K thanks to persistent homeowner (Fox13)
• Here are some of the new Utah laws going into effect on July 1 (ABC4)
• Plan for long lines, lengthy waits this weekend in Zion National Park (St. George News)

Politics

• What Utah leaders say about Supreme Court ruling that limits EPA’s power to reduce carbon emissions (Deseret News)
• Utah lauds, environmentalists lament Supreme Court for limiting EPA on clean power (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Election update: Two incumbents on the cusp of falling in Salt Lake and Utah counties (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Some races tighten for Utah GOP hopefuls in latest updates to primary vote totals (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Jen Plumb overtakes Derek Kitchen in nail-biter Utah Senate race (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Controversial candidate Kim DelGrosso concedes Utah school board race to incumbent Cindy Davis (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Richard Davis: In Utah, the election that matters most doesn’t matter to most voters. The Utah Republican primary makes most of the decisions, but gets the smallest turnout. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Husband of Bluffdale mayor charged for allegedly harassing wife’s political opponent. Jason Hall was charged Thursday with one felony and two misdemeanors (Salt Lake Tribune)

Education

• State school board to consider library book policy (KUTV)

Environment

• Federal government cancels yet another oil and gas lease sale in Utah (Salt Lake Tribune)
• One of Utah's largest water suppliers is asking residents to cut use by 10% (Fox13)
• E.P.A. ruling is a milestone in the long pushback to regulation of business. The decision created greater opportunities for business interests to challenge regulations, reflecting conservative legal theories developed to rein in administrative agencies. (New York Times)

Health

• Park City Mountain owner Vail Resorts expands health plan to cover abortion, travel costs (Deseret News)
• 19 more Utahns died of COVID-19, and the number of cases is on the rise (Salt Lake Tribune)

Housing

• How Airbnbs are making Utah’s housing market crisis worse — especially in these cities (Deseret News)
• An old Salt Lake City Ramada helped as a shelter but it wasn’t a homelessness solution. Out of 168 clients at the city's temporary high-needs hotel, only 22 were connected to permanent housing. (KUER)

National Headlines

General

• Religious freedom is ‘life or death’ in the trenches (Deseret News)
• New data: Inflation still running red hot, consumers could tap out savings by end of the summer (Deseret News)
• Trial for US basketball star begins in Moscow-area court (AP)
• After two pandemic years, a summer travel bounce — and chaos (AP)

Politics

• Three-fourths of Democrats dissatisfied with the direction of the country, economy (Deseret News)
• Liz Cheney to Republicans: Choose between the Constitution or Trump (Deseret News)
• Biden supports exception to Senate filibuster to pass abortion-rights law (Deseret News)
• Supreme Court ruling will allow Biden to scrap ‘Remain in Mexico.’
  Kavanaugh and Roberts side with liberal justices (Deseret News)
• Trump’s vulnerabilities for 2024 mount after new testimony (AP)
• Boebert, court decisions ignite debate over church and state (The Hill)
• Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law takes effect today. Its impact is already being felt (The Hill)
• Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sworn in to Supreme Court (Politico)
• Supreme Court to hear case on GOP ‘independent legislature’ theory that could radically reshape elections. The case stems from the North Carolina Supreme Court's decision this year to throw out the Republican-drawn congressional map for gerrymandering. (Politico)

Ukraine 🇺🇦 

• A pre-dawn deadly missile strike hits residential buildings in Ukraine's Odesa region (AP)
• Dozens of Russian weapons tycoons have faced no Western sanctions (Reuters)

News Releases

Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute: Utah’s Consumer Sentiment continues to fall in June

Utah’s consumer sentiment fell in June, according to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute’s Survey of Utah Consumers. The Utah index fell to 64.4 in June, compared to 69.0 in May. For the version of our index referring to the U.S., sentiment was 54.1 in June, compared to 57.9 in May. June’s national consumer sentiment index reflects the lowest reading in the University of Michigan survey’s 70-year history.

The full results are now available online. (Read More)

Number of the Day

Tweet of the Day

Upcoming

• Hatch Center Webinar: Preserving Judicial Integrity — July 14, 11:00 am, MDT. Register here
• ULCT Annual Convention - Oct 5-7, Salt Palace Convention Center, Register here
• General election â€“ Nov 8

On This Day In History

• 1863 - The Battle of Gettysburg begins
• 1867 - New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario became the Dominion of Canada. Happy Canada Day!
• 1896 - Harriet Beecher Stowe dies at age 85
• 1903 - France hosts the first Tour de France bicycle race.
• 1916 - Battle of the Somme begins. By the end of the day, 20,000 British soldiers were dead and 40,000 wounded. It was the single heaviest day of casualties in British military history.
• 1944 - The Bretton Woods Conference begins. 
• 1968 - The United States institutes the ZIP Code.
• 1984 - PG-13 rating debuts
• 1987 - For the first time in history, there were three Black women serving as presidents of four-year colleges and universities in the US: Dr. Niara Sudarkasa at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Dr. Johnetta Cole, at Spelman College in Atlanta and Dr. Gloria Randle Scott at Bennett College in Greensboro, NC.
• 1994 - Judith Rodin becomes the first female president of an Ivy League Institution when she is named president of the University of Pennsylvania.
• 1997 - Hong Kong returned to China. It’s not working out that great.

Wise Words

“In the twenty-first century, building resilience is one of our most urgent social and economic issues because we live in a world that is defined by disruption."

— Judith Rodin

Lighter Side

“The Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the authority to protect the environment? So what is their job now?”

— TREVOR NOAH

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